I was going to do a 2021 recap but every time I started to do it I got way into too much detail about one thing, and I don’t really want to share any more about that thing because I’m tired of it.
Also, I’ve had sharing mode set to off since November. I’m hibernating. Waiting for new dreams to make themselves known as I rest and digest the warmer parts of the year past.
So, just a very short, late list of some details of 2021.
One thing I learned about myself in 2021:
I wasn’t wrong - when people talk about their “love languages” they’re talking about how they receive love; I believe the assumption being that how you show love is also how you receive it. That’s not true for me. This year I realized that my love language - ie, what I believe to be properly understood (despite what the author may have intended though I couldn’t get past the first fifty pages to actually find out) as how I express love, is through acts of service and gifts. How many friends have I helped move? Or paint their walls? That is how I show my love to people. But would I receive love this way? Good luck getting me to come up with something you can do for me that isn’t cooking or taking care of me when I’m sick!
Something weird you would find in my room if you were nosy:
A literal box of hair. I’ve had long hair for most of my life and that means a lot gets shed. I’ve never known what to properly do with it so a long time ago I started pulling the neat pads of hair off my hairbrush and putting them in a box, for when I figured it out. I think I will feed it to my compost in 2022 and become part of the land I’m living on. I’m still around, and dumping my body in the woods when I go is probably illegal (also… where?), so this is the best I can do right now.
Something I experienced for the first time that I can recall:
Brain fog, when I had covid back in September. In fact my first indication that something might be wrong was that I felt depressed and like I couldn’t concentrate. As it progressed (the symptoms came on pretty slowly and fortunately were’t too severe) the brain fog got worse. For the first time I had trouble thinking. It was very strange, and somewhat alarming considering my thinking mind is what I use to pay the bills and buy the things. But it put in perspective that life is change. I may not be able to think as clearly as I can now; I should be very cautious about building an identity centered on being “a smart person.” Because intelligence depends on a lot of things, and it’s not immutable. I’ve experienced it changing in both directions now.
A plant I came to know in 2021:
Evening Primrose. I first met it in my brother’s neighborhood which has really nice walking trails that go through land that has been left to itself and returned to Illinois native species. It was a yellow flower that smelled like the Evening Primrose oil I use on my face and when I looked it up on iNaturalist, that’s exactly what it was. I was like well nice to finally meet you! After several months of wondering if I had any growing near me, I finally noticed the yellow flowers growing in my neighborhood. Several weeks later they had dried out, leaving behind their seed pods, so I brought a branch of it back to my house and planted the seeds in several places in the yard.
Some wild foods I foraged and tried:
Wild rose hips - there was a huge patch in El Bosque, next to the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, New Mexico, among the cottonwoods. These are the fruits of the roses and they’re ready to eat when they are shriveled up. They taste just like you would imagine the fruit of a rose would taste.
Acorns - there are lots of oaks in my neighborhood so on several consecutive weekends this fall I gathered bags full. I mostly gave them to the squirrels, but then I figured I should learn what to do with them. I learned that if they float, even if they don’t look bad, don’t bother with them because they’ve already sprouted and will rot when you try to leech out the tannins. Also that I prefer the red oak acorns, because they don’t sprout until Spring so you’ve got more time to process them. And roasting acorns smell like maple syrup.
So welcome to 2022. I can’t make any promises as to the regularity of this newsletter yet. I don’t feel like I’m in a slump per se, I just feel like I am resting and recovering from some things and don’t feel like sharing much. Some significant things were let go of in 2021 but some other significant things were remembered, and that’s what I’ve been slowly working my way through. It has had a contracting effect of me, giving me the urge to make myself invisible as if I were thirteen again. But I’ve got grownup me here and we’re working through it.
Anyway, may you all have a healthy 2022, and thanks for sticking with me.